R. Kelly verdict: Singer Guilty In Federal Trial In Chicago, Bringing Closure to Decadeslong Legal Saga.

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It took 11 hours for jurors in the R&B star’s trial to reach their decision, finding Kelly guilty on six of 13 counts.

     R. Kelly, the Chicago-born R&B superstar whose “I Believe I Can Fly” anthem inspired countless fans around the globe, sexually abused a 14-year-old girl on camera after she asked him to be her godfather as his career skyrocketed in the 1990s.

     The singer is already not likely to leave federal prison until his late 70s. Wednesday’s verdict will likely extend his stay, though his sentencing date has not been set.

     While Kelly now faces a sentence of 10 to 90 years, it’s unclear whether the judge will add any time to the end of Kelly’s current sentence or have him serve the terms concurrently.

     The decision came at the end of a bruising, month-long trial featuring b
 30 witnesses on the 25th floor of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago’s Loop. Jurors viewed graphic videos at the heart of the case, and they heard Jane’s harrowing tale as she took the stand last month to testify for the first time against Kelly.

     Fourteen years after a state-court jury famously cleared him of that claim — at a trial revolving around a video that became a late-night punchline — a federal jury found Wednesday that Kelly produced that and other videos of his graphic abuse of the girl, known in court as “Jane.”

     And that’s not all. The federal jury also found that Kelly, 55, enticed two additional girls into criminal sexual activity when they were underage in the 1990s, all while he was on his way to being celebrated as one of the greatest R&B singers and songwriters of his generation.
His other victims were known in court as “Pauline” and “Nia.”

Credit: Breaking News Chicago.

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